Toyota And Ford To Go It Alone On Hybrid Trucks After Study

Sometimes the most significant divorces are handled in the most minimalist way.

So it was with a brief press statement from Toyota today, noting that after completing a "feasibility study" that took almost two years, the two companies have chosen not to pursue a collaboration on hybrid powertrains for large pickup trucks.

The two companies, each with a decade or more of experience in building hybrid vehicles, said that they had agreed to "develop hybrid systems individually."

It's an amicable split; the two will continue to work together on "next-generation standards for telematics," as well as promising to "consider other areas for future collaboration as well."

Announced in August 2011, the Toyota-Ford hybrid collaboration was just one of several among automakers on different and increasingly expensive powertrain components to boost fuel efficiency.

Ford, meanwhile, said in its own release that it would move forward with a rear-wheel-drive hybrid system for its pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles on its own.

The hybrid system for trucks will consist of an "all-new architecture" that can provide "the capability truck and SUV customers demand" while boosting gas mileage.

“We know what it takes to build world-class hybrids," said Raj Nair, Ford's group VP of global product development, "and we now will build and leverage that expertise in-house.”

Such a system will be available "by the end of this decade," which gives the company considerable leeway during a period in which fuel-efficiency requirements will steadily tighten.

Toyota leads, Ford third

While Toyota is by far the global industry's hybrid leader, having sold more than 5 million hybrids since 1997, Ford is third (after Honda) in total hybrid sales over the same period.

When the collaboration was announced, General Motors still offered a hybrid pickup truck for sale as the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Hybrid and the GMC Sierra 1500 Hybrid.

With the advent of a new generation of large GM pickup trucks, those models are now gone--and the related hybrid sport-utility vehicles are likely to vanish as well when those vehicles are renewed next year.

Meanwhile, Ford has had unexpected success selling its 3.5-liter turbocharged V-6 EcoBoost engine in its F-150 series of pickups, while Chrysler launched a 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel pickup truck with a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V-6.

These two approaches to boosting the fuel efficiency of large pickups may reduce the immediate need to develop hybrid pickups in the near term.